Wireless power transmitting apparatus   

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a wireless power transmitting apparatus, and more particularly, to a wireless power transmitting apparatus for transmitting power from a power emitting device to a power receiving device.

2. Description of the Prior Art

For electronic products charged by combining devices including conventional wires and transformers, power of the electronic products may merely be transmitted by using specific apparatuses fitting specifications of the electronic products. Therefore, while a user buys a power-consuming electronic product, he or she has to buy charging devices corresponding to the bought power-consuming electronic product for serving as media of transmitting power, and it indicates significant inconveniences for the user. For accommodating such a user in charging the bought electronic product, some wireless power transmitting technologies come out.

Primary existing wireless power transmitting technologies are implemented with inductance coils or radio wave propagation. While the wireless power transmitting technologies are implemented with inductance coils, power are transmitted by low-frequency transformation between magnetic energy and electric power; however, only a significantly small amount of power may reach the inductance coils as receiving power, and it indicates that most of power dissipates in the air while the distance between the inductance coils for power transmission increases. Besides, since a transmitting frequency of the inductance coils is usually inconsistent with a receiving frequency of an electronic product for receiving power transmitted from said inductance coils, additional inductance coils having a consistent receiving frequency with the transmitting frequency of the inductance coils for transmitting power have to be disposed within the electronic product for power transmissions. However, the popular electronic products are usually required to possess small weight and compact size, and the inductance coils fail in meeting requirements of a qualified power transmission ratio, locations on the electronic products for the inductance coils are thus limited significantly.

Wireless power transmitting technologies implemented with radio wave propagation, for example, the technology of radio frequency identification (RFID), transmit power with the aid of low-frequency inductance coils or high-frequency wave beams, where power transmission using the low-frequency inductance coils in the wireless power transmitting technologies is the same with power transmission related to inductance coils mentioned above. The high-frequency wave beams for transmitting power carry power to an electronic product located a couple of meters away and equipped with power receiving circuits. However, a supposition, under which the power receiving device is located at an unknown location, has to be followed while the high-frequency wave beams are used for carrying power, an emitting antenna is required to emit electromagnetic beams to whole surroundings so that the power receiving device, which is included by the electronic product, can receive the carried power of the electromagnetic beams. In other words, the emitting antenna has to emit power to omni-direction so that the electronic product is able to receive required power. While an emitting antenna having high directivity is used for emitting the abovementioned high-frequency wave beams, the electronic product is able to receive power with a high efficiency; however, it is also getting expensive in designing the receiving circuit of the electronic product, and feasible locations of the electronic product for receiving the emitted power also meet more limitations.

Please refer to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, both of which illustrate a resistive surface disclosed in US Patent Publication No. 2007/0139294. While the disclosed resistive surface is used on a housing of a wireless power transmitting apparatus, power transmitted from the emitting antenna may be effectively restricted within a specific space. As shown in FIG. 1, a plurality of electrically conductive plates 318, a plurality of capacitors 320, a plurality of conductive via 322 and 332, an electrode 326, and a dielectric 328 together form a high impedance surface, where necessary discharges are performed with a conductive via 322 between each electrically conductive plate 318 and a corresponding capacitor 320. As shown in the top view of FIG. 2, on the high impedance surface 300, high impedance is generated by both the capacitor 320 and the inductor 330 of each the electrically conductive plate 318 for preventing electromagnetic power from dissipating. Note that the conductive via 322 is disposed at a center of the inductor 330. However, the high impedance surface 300 has to be implemented with large amounts of conductive via 322 and 332 so as to bring a larger volume and an expensive fabrication cost of the wireless transmitting apparatus having the housing the high impedance surface 300.

SUMMARY

The claimed invention discloses a wireless power transmitting apparatus. The power transmitting apparatus comprises a sealed metal housing, a plurality of duplicate-distributed conductor slices, at least one power emitting device, and at least one power receiving device. The sealed metal housing has an irregular geometric shape. The plurality of duplicate-distributed conductor slices is disposed on a plurality of inner surfaces of the sealed metal housing. The at least one power emitting device is disposed at an inner side of the sealed metal housing.

The at least one power receiving device is disposed at the inner side of the sealed metal housing for receiving transmitted power from the power emitting device.

These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 illustrate a resistive surface disclosed in US Patent Publication No. 2007/0139294.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of a wireless power transmitting apparatus implemented with a quadrilateral pillar-shaped housing according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates candidate shapes of the sealed metal housing shown in FIG. 3 according to some embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 5 schematically illustrates parts of the plurality of duplicate-distributed conductor slices on the sealed metal housing shown in FIG. 3, where the illustrated plurality of duplicate-distributed conductor slice shown in FIG. 5 correspond to a region shown in FIG. 3.

FIG. 6 illustrates relative locations between parts of the plurality of conductor slices and the sealed metal housing shown in FIG. 3, where a base plate having dielectrics is further disposed between the sealed metal housing and the illustrated plurality of conductor slices.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating an equivalent circuit corresponding to the sealed metal housing, the plurality of conductive slices, and the base plate shown in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6.

FIG. 8 illustrates a plurality of duplicate-distributed conductive slices disposed at the inner sides of both the upper case and the lower case shown in FIG. 3.

FIG. 9 illustrates a plurality of regular-hexagon-shaped and duplicate-distributed conductive slices.

FIG. 10 illustrates using a cylinder housing for implementing the sealed metal housing shown in FIG. 3.

FIG. 11 illustrates using a sphere housing for implementing the sealed metal housing shown in FIG. 3.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

To overcome significant power dissipation of the wireless power transmission in the prior art, and to relieve the expensive fabrication cost, the large volume, and technical bottlenecks of the wireless power transmitting apparatus, the present invention discloses a wireless power transmitting apparatus for delivering power from a power transmitting device to a power receiving device. The wireless power transmitting apparatus of the present invention is primarily implemented with a sealed metal housing having an irregular and unspecific geometric shape, and with specific polygon-shaped conductive slices disposed on inner surfaces of the sealed metal housing so that high impedance against electromagnetic waves is generated on the inner surfaces of the sealed metal housing. With the generated high impedance, dissipation of electromagnetic waves is efficiently prevented so that a power receiving device disposed at an arbitrary location inside the sealed metal housing is capable of efficiently receiving power emitted from a transmitter of the wireless power transmitting apparatus of the present invention.

Please refer to FIG. 3, which is a schematic diagram of a wireless power transmitting apparatus implemented with a quadrilateral pillar-shaped housing according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 3, the wireless power transmitting apparatus 100 includes a sealed metal housing 102, a plurality of duplicate-distributed conductor slices 104, and a power emitting device 106. As shown in FIG. 3, the sealed metal housing 102 is a quadrilateral pillar-shaped housing. The plurality of conductive slices 104 are disposed on a plurality of inner surfaces on a plurality of side walls included by the sealed metal housing 102. The power emitting device 106 is disposed inside the sealed metal housing 102, and is insulating from the sealed metal housing 102. A power receiving device 108 is also disposed inside the sealed metal housing 102, for receiving power emitted from the power emitting device 106 inside the sealed metal housing 102. Besides, the sealed metal housing 102 further includes an upper case 210 and a lower case 220, both of which are illustrated in forms of a blow chart, At least one among the upper case 210 and the lower case 220 is disposed on the sealed metal housing 102 in a detachable manner so that the power receiving device 108 can be disposed inside the sealed metal housing 102. The upper case 210 and the lower case 220 are polygon-shaped structures and are symmetric with each other in shape.

A shape of the sealed metal housing 102 may be an irregular geometric shape, in other words, the shape of the sealed metal housing 102 is not limited by as shown in FIG. 3. For example, in one embodiment of the present invention, the sealed metal housing 102 may be implemented with a metal polygon-shaped housing. Please refer to FIG. 4, which illustrates candidate shapes of the sealed metal housing 102 shown in FIG. 3 according to some embodiments of the present invention. Note that a shape of the sealed metal housing 102 is not limited by those shown in FIG. 4 as well, and note that interiors of the sealed metal housings 102 shown in FIG. 4 have same compositions with as shown in FIG. 3 so that said interiors are not further illustrated.

The power emitting device 106 includes at least one antenna, which may be implemented with a resonance antenna, such as a monopole antenna, a microstrip antenna, or a dipole antenna. Therefore, a shape of the power emitting device 106 is not limited by as shown in FIG. 3, as long as characteristics including lengths or materials of the power emitting device 106 meet requirements related to propagating wavelength of emitting electromagnetic wave. The power receiving device 108 may be a power-consuming electronic product capable of receiving power emitted from the power emitting device 106, such as a cell phone or a multimedia player. At least one antenna may also disposed inside the power receiving device 108 for transferring received power to energy-storing elements included by the power receiving device 108, where the at least one antenna may be implemented with a resonance antenna, which may be a monopole antenna, a microstrip antenna, or a dipole antenna, as long as characteristics including lengths or materials of the at least one antenna meet requirements related to wavelengths for receiving emitted power from the power emitting device 106. Note that in one embodiment of the present invention, the power emitted by the power emitting device 106 may also be in the form of heat transfer; therefore, the power receiving device 108 may be implemented with a heat-absorbing object so as to receive the heat transferred from the power emitting device 106. In other words, power transmission may be accomplished by heat radiation from the power emitting device 106 to the power receiving device 108, which is implemented with a heat-absorbing object. Moreover, within a same wireless power transmitting apparatus 100, numbers and disposed locations of both the power emitting device 106 and the power receiving device 108 are not limited by as shown in FIG. 3. In other words, more than one power emitting devices 106 and power receiving devices 108 may be included by the wireless power transmitting apparatus 100, and disposed locations of both the power emitting devices 106 and the power receiving devices 108 may be arbitrary locations inside the sealed metal housing 102.

Please refer to FIG. 5, which schematically illustrates parts of the plurality of duplicate-distributed conductor slices 104 on the sealed metal housing 102 shown in FIG. 3, where the illustrated plurality of duplicate-distributed conductor slices 104 shown in FIG. 5 correspond to a region 1021 shown in FIG. 3. Please refer to FIG. 6, which illustrates relative locations between parts of the plurality of conductor slices 104 and the sealed metal housing 102 shown in FIG. 3, where a dielectric as a base plate 120 is further disposed between the sealed metal housing 102 and the illustrated plurality of conductor slices 104. As shown in FIG. 5, the plurality of conductive slices 104 within the region 1021 are located at a same inner surface of the sealed metal housing 102; and there is a gap having a length of g between any two neighboring conductor slices 104 on the same inner surface of the sealed metal housing 102 so that the plurality of conductive slices 104 are duplicate-distributed. Each of the conductive slices 104 has a same size, i.e., a same length a and a same width b. In a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the plurality of conductive slices 104 on the inner surfaces of the sealed metal housing 102 are implemented with artificial magnetic conductors (AMC). In FIG. 6, a thickness of the base plate 120 is h, and a dielectric coefficient of the base plate 120 is ∈γ, which may not be equivalent with the dielectric coefficient ∈0 of air. Since dielectric in an other side of the conductive slices 104 shown in FIG. 6 is the air existing interior to the sealed metal housing 102 so that the permittivity of the air dielectric is ∈0. Please refer to FIG. 7, which is a diagram illustrating an equivalent circuit corresponding to the sealed metal housing 102, the plurality of conductive slices 104, and the base plate 120 shown in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6. Note that C indicates an equivalent capacitance of the equivalent circuit, and L indicates an equivalent inductance of the equivalent circuit. As can be observed from FIG. 5 and FIG. 6, the equivalent capacitance C may be obtained by

C = W · ɛ o · ( 1 + ɛ r ) π · cosh - 1  ( W + g g ) ; ( 1 )

W indicates an estimated width of the plurality of conductive slices 104, and may acquire a same value with a, b, or an average of both a and b. The equivalent inductance L can be approximately obtained by

L=μo·h  (2);

μo indicates the permeability of vacuum. For generating the high impedance on both the metal sealed housing 102 and the plurality of conductive slices 104 for preventing electromagnetic power from dissipating, a phase difference between an incident wave and a reflected wave on a surface formed by both the sealed metal housing 102 and the plurality of conductive slices 104 must be 0°, i.e., a phase of a corresponding reflection coefficient has to be 0°. A reflection phase Φ on the formed surface of both the sealed metal housing 102 and the plurality of conductive slices 104 may be inducted as follows:

Φ = Im  { ln  ( E inc E ref ) } = Im  { ln  ( Z s - η Z s + η ) } ; ( 3 )

Einc indicates the electric field of the incident wave; Eref indicates the electric field of the reflected wave; Zs indicates a ratio of an electric field Etotal, which is tangential to the formed surface, to an magnetic field Htotal, where both the tangent electric field and magnetic field corresponding to the formed surface of the sealed metal housing 102 and the plurality of conductive slices 104. The reflection coefficient η may be indicated as:

η =  E inc H inc  =  E ref H ref  =

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